Typical media processing systems provide a fixed pipeline of functions that sequentially pass data through each processing stage. Examples of such media processing systems include media processing systems for audio and video for digital TV (DTV), media personal computers (PCs) and set-top boxes. In general, such media processing systems may include any system where data needs to be processed in a sequential fashion and options exist for the order of the processing the media, or different algorithms exist for processing different stages of the pipeline.
Due to the proprietary nature of many of media processing algorithms, there is a strong desire on the part of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) in this field to use their own, in-house developed, proprietary algorithms for a portion of a media processing pipeline. Such OEMs may desire the extension of, for example, video processing by use of an external custom component. Unfortunately, due to the fixed nature of such media pipelines, if an additional stage is desired in the pipeline, the system must be redesigned to add the new stage to the media processing pipeline. This severely limits the flexibility and extensibility of such media processing systems.